Fast Shut Down Icon in XP

Buried deep inside Windows XP lurks a little-known program called shutdown that shuts down your system in a very fast but orderly way. Here's how to put an icon on your desktop that'll shut down your machine quickly:

1. Right-click any empty location on your desktop.

2. Click New, Shortcut.

The Create Shortcut Wizard appears.

3. In the Type the Location of the Item box, type shutdown -s -t 0.

It's important that you put spaces before each hyphen, that you have no spaces after each hyphen, and that you use a zero at the end.

4. Click Next. 5. In the Type a Name for This Shortcut box, use a name that will remind you that this button is for a very quick shut down.

To test the new, fast shut down icon, make sure no programs are running, and double-click it. On a typical machine, you see the log-off screen in about three seconds, and after another two or three seconds, you get the "It is now safe to turn off your computer" message.

This isn't a leisurely process. Windows gives you a short period of time to save changes in your Office documents, and other applications quit in an orderly way.

Navigate to your desktop. On the desktop, right-click and go to New, then to Shortcut (in other words, create a new shortcut). You should now see a pop-up window instructing you to enter a command line path.
Use this path in "Type Location of the Item"
SHUTDOWN -s -t 01
If the C: drive is not your local hard drive, then replace "C" with the correct letter of the hard drive. Click the "Next" button. Name the shortcut and click the "Finish" button. Now whenever you want to shut down, just click on this shortcut and you're done.